Dummy
by avesjohn
Summary: 12-year-old Amy Rutherford of California receives a ventriloquist's dummy named Slappy as a gift from her estranged father, and immediately begins to suspect that the dummy is alive. While reluctantly taking ownership of Slappy, she meets a loner classmate named Greg who shows her the ropes of ventriloquism. As events unfold, their lives are changed forever.
1. Chapter 1

Amy Rutherford sat next to her mother on the couch, watching some nonsense reality program on the television that she would no doubt forget as soon as she left the room. She hoped that would be sooner rather than later; impatiently, she glanced at her watch: six-fifteen. Her bright baby blue eyes turned from the digital device around her wrist to the analog clock on the wall, and when she saw that they were in agreement, she grew even more frustrated.

"He's late again," the twelve-year-old remarked.

"Well, your father's a busy man," Janelle replied. As one would expect, she was an older version of her daughter, with the same petite build, the same blond hair and blue eyes, and much the same taste in clothing, - that is to say, a fondness for blue jeans, long sleeves and conservative colors in her outfits. Really, the only noticeable difference between them at the moment – besides their age – was Janelle's obviously greater tolerance for her ex-husband's tardiness. "I'm sure he has a good reason for being so late." She sighed and turned back to the TV, giving Amy small comfort that she wasn't suffering through this alone. "God, this show stinks. What are we watching again?"

Amy shrugged.

"No wonder it sucks, then."

The women were spared from giving any more indifferent reactions to the reality show when the doorbell suddenly rang. Janelle clicked the button on the remote to turn off the TV while she and Amy stood up from the couch to answer the door.

"He better have a good excuse this time," Amy muttered, already knowing that he wouldn't.

"Vince!" Janelle said, greeting the very tall and handsome dark-haired man standing at the doorway with a noticeably uncomfortable hug born more out of habit and tradition than any genuine affection. "Glad you could make it!"

"I'm glad I could, too!" he said, looking past Janelle over to Amy. With a sigh, he mumbled, "Man, you wouldn't _believe_ the traffic through San Jose today."

"You're a liar," Amy said.

" _Amy!_ " Janelle gasped.

"Well, if he weren't, you wouldn't have divorced him, would you?"

"Traffic _was_ awful, Amy," Vince replied. "Come on, you live here, too. You know how bad it can get." Even after he said this admittedly true statement, Amy merely crossed her arms and glared silently back at him. "Besides," he said with an awkward smile, "I brought a present for you."

"Is it a time machine so you can go back and fix all your broken promises?"

"No," he said, reaching out of sight on the other side of the door and retrieving a big black metal box, about half the size of Amy herself. He carried it by the handle as Janelle invited him into the building.

Amy was intrigued by the box and wondered what might have been inside it. On the one hand, there was the faint hope that Vince had finally done something right and gotten her an amazing gift. But on the other, there was longstanding precedent to suggest otherwise.

The family sat down at the couch, and Vince laid the box down on the coffee table in front of Amy. "Go ahead," he said with a smile, "open it."

Amy's fingers unhooked the latches on the side and opened the box.

Momentary excitement turned to immediate disappointment when she saw what was inside.

It was a little wooden man.

"What," Amy said, not even mustering up enough enthusiasm to attach a question mark at the end. She turned to her father, who seemed oddly proud of this choice of present, and then back to the dummy: he was dressed in a black suit and pants with faint purple striping, with impeccably groomed, equally jet black hair and jade green eyes. On the left breast of the suit was a pocket with some small slips of paper sticking out, and out of morbid curiosity Amy reached inside to see what they said.

One slip was just a note saying, " _Hi, my name is Slappy_." The other was a short series of random gibberish words that Amy vaguely wondered were even doing in there before deciding it wasn't worth her time. She returned the notes into Slappy's shirt pocket and slammed the case shut.

"Mom, why does Dad hate me?" she said.

Janelle again gasped at Amy's bluntness, while Vince tried to justify the presence of that ugly thing now resting inside that box in their house. "Amy, I put a lot of thought into this!"

"Define 'a lot,'" Amy said, staring in disbelief at her father and pushing the box away from her towards the other side of the table.

"Amy, remember when you were a kid? And _Pinocchio_ was your favorite Disney movie? You used to sing 'I've Got No Strings' all the time." Janelle nodded her head in agreement, but she and Vince both sighed when they saw the lack of change in Amy's facial expression. "Well, I figured it might be fun if you gave ventriloquism a try," he added.

"Why in the _hell_ would I want to do that?" Amy said. "I've never been interested in ventriloquism. I will never _be_ interested in ventriloquism. I don't know a single person who is, except you, apparently."

"Now, Amy, hold on…"

"This is the worst gift you've _ever_ given me! And I thought last year's CD player was awful."

"What's wrong with a CD player?" Vince said.

"Come on, Dad, nobody buys CDs anymore! It's 2006! We have iTunes for that. This is Silicon Valley, you of all people should know that." She looked at the black box with Slappy inside, and then tried to be reasonable about the situation. "Look, why don't you just return the dummy to wherever you bought it, and I can just use that money to buy something myself. Isn't that a fair compromise?"

"It would be," Vince said, "except I can't return it. The guy I bought it from said he wouldn't give any refunds. I think he was pretty adamant about wanting to just get rid of Slappy."

"Can't say I blame him," Amy said. "But seriously, even knowing I might hate this thing, even knowing you wouldn't be able to get a refund, you _still_ bought it?"

"Amy," Janelle said, putting her hand on her daughter's back, "I know you hate it right now, but you should really consider giving this a shot. Maybe ventriloquism won't be so bad. You might even have fun, and end up liking it."

"Do it for me, Amy," Vince said. "Just keep him for a few weeks. If you _really_ don't want him after that, we can put Slappy up for sale on eBay or something."

After a tense moment of deliberation, Amy finally conceded, and with a grumble, replied, " _Fine_."

"That's my girl," Vince said.

"This is one promise you'd better not break, Dad," she reminded him. "I'm going to hold you to this one."

"I never actually promised anything here, Amy." She wasn't sure if this clarification made things better or worse, given his track record, but she didn't have to wonder for long, because a moment later, he added, "But if it makes you feel any better, I _promise_ we'll get rid of Slappy if things don't work out."

Damn it. An official promise from Vince Rutherford was worth jack. Now she was really screwed. Amy let out an audible groan.

"I don't think that made her feel any better, Vince," Janelle astutely observed. Perhaps wanting to break the tension, she quickly moved on to another subject. "Who's hungry? I've prepared some chicken and rice for dinner."

"Sounds great," Vince said. "Come on, Amy, let's eat."

"Anything to take my mind of your stupid gift, Dad."

The three of them all rose up from their places on the couch and headed towards the table in the next room. Amy was about to claim a chair between her parents when Janelle abruptly put a stop to that action. "You left your dummy in the living room, Amy."

Just what she needed to hear: Slappy was now _her_ dummy. "So?"

"Well, don't just leave him there. Put him away. Take him to your room."

" _Now?_ " Amy said. "I thought we were about to have dinner!"

"By the time you get back, your plate will be ready. Please?"

"Where am I supposed to put him?"

"Wherever you think he should go." Amy opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Janelle cut her off. "And don't say the garbage."

"…Guess he's going in my closet, then," Amy mumbled, rolling her eyes. She walked back into the living room, picked up the box containing Slappy, and carried it over to her bedroom, in the corner of the house overlooking the front lawn. True to her word, she tossed the box into her closet and shut the door so it was out of sight. "Better get comfortable, Slappy," she said, addressing the dummy for the first and hopefully last time. "You're staying in there until it's eBay time." With nothing left to say, she left her room to get some dinner and pretend like everything was okay in this family post-divorce.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day was a Monday, which meant Amy was back at school. After not seeing her best friend during her first two class periods, the two sixth-grade girls finally got to meet up during the fifteen-minute break between second and third. Gathering like a majority of their classmates on the quad of the middle school campus, Amy said her compulsory, "Hey," to Brittany Thorne, a taller and more developed girl, blond and blue-eyed like her but much prettier and, for the aforementioned reasons, also much more popular, especially in recent months. "My life sucks," Amy immediately complained.

"Oh, yeah, your Dad came by for his monthly visit last night, didn't he?" Brittany said. "What lame gift did he give you this time?"

"A dummy."

"I know he is, but what did he _give_ you?"

"A dummy," Amy repeated. "A ventriloquist's dummy."

"What the shit?" Brittany said, a perfectly logical response to that statement. "Why?"

"Because I liked _Pinocchio_ when I was a kid."

"…So… _why_?"

"Exactly."

Brittany scoffed and shook her head in disbelief. "Your dad is a dummy. That's probably why he got the damn thing in the first place. Felt a connection. Tried to justify it with the _Pinocchio_ thing."

"Didn't work," Amy said.

"No kidding." Brittany chuckled. "So, when can I see it?"

"What, the dummy?"

"Yeah, what else?"

"Why would you want to see it? _I_ don't."

"Amy, I need a visual aid if I want to laugh at your pain."

"I'm not taking Slappy out of my closet until we're ready to sell him on eBay."

"Slappy?" Brittany said with another laugh. "You _named_ him?"

Amy groaned and rolled her eyes. "No. You think I'd put that much effort into something I hate? He had a slip of paper with his name on it inside his coat pocket. And some weird foreign words."

"What words?"

Amy shrugged. "Don't know, don't care. Not my problem."

"Okay, now I _really_ have to see your dummy."

"I wouldn't get your hopes up, Brittany. Not unless you plan on buying him from me."

"Please," Brittany replied with a smirk. "I'm just curious, is all. Like I'd ever blow my money on something that stupid."

"My Dad should get shopping advice from you," Amy suggested. "Maybe then I'd get some gifts I'd actually _enjoy_."

"Yeah," Brittany said with a nod. "But look on the bright side. At least your dad's still around to give you stuff."

Amy knew the conversation would eventually head in this direction. It always did. Any time she complained about her troubled relationship with her father, Brittany inevitably shared some perspective on how much worse it could be.

"If my Dad were still alive, I'll bet he'd know exactly what to get me."

"If your Dad were still alive," Amy said, "he'd be in prison. Besides, you have a stepdad."

"Not the same," Brittany said. "Once your mom starts dating again, you'll know. And she will. Hopefully she won't pop out an annoying little stepbrother like mine did."

Amy suddenly realized they were being watched. She and Brittany both turned to look at the boy standing near the latter, opposite from Amy. He was a decent-looking kid, brown hair, green eyes, neither particularly attractive nor repulsive, dressed in a Batman t-shirt and blue jeans. "Yes?" Amy said. She already knew why he was standing there, but politeness compelled her to humor the boy. "Can we help you?"

"Sorry," he answered, blushing. "I'm Steven. I just overheard something about prison and I got curious." He glanced at Brittany. "So what exactly did your dad do? Do you want to talk about it?"

"As if she needs to," Amy said, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. "At this point, I doubt there's a single person in Los Gatos that _doesn't_ already know who Brittany's dad was. Including you, Steven."

Steven seemed shocked by Amy's hostility. "But…I really am just curious."

"You're only curious because she has _boobs_ ," Amy said, cutting out the middleman.

Flustered, Steven awkwardly tried to dismiss this accusation with a laugh. " _What?_ I am not! Why would I…I mean, I didn't even _notice_ …not until you said it. You're ridiculous."

"Uh-huh," Amy said, having progressed to simply ignoring the boy. She turned around so he and Brittany were behind her. He was Brittany's problem now; it would be her decision whether or not it was worth the time to enlighten Steven on what happened.

Despite having told the story dozens of times to just as many pubescent listeners, half of whom already knew it and the other half only interested on account of boobs, Brittany was more than willing to soak in the attention. "Okay, I'll tell you," she said to Steven.

Amy shook her head and sighed. While Brittany's family history was admittedly more exciting than most, just once Amy wished she could be the center of attention instead. Half-listening to her best friend tell the story to a joyous Steven, Amy resigned herself to waiting for the next bell to ring.


End file.
